Theater people... I hate these guys.
At the risk of appearing to be a link-ophant* with my nose planted securely in Ace's bum, he noted something I wanted to comment on, AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, LEAVE.
One bit about Dawn's story that interests me is the shock that creative types feel when they learn they may have to shape their product to appeal to the audience. They seem to have this notion that an artist should be utterly free to "explore" whatever he likes, the audience be damned.That's EXACTLY what turned me off of theater when I was about 80% through getting my degree in it.
These damned actors and directors and self-aggradizing self-labeled visionaries see it as their damned duty to confront their audience — not entertain it. Certainly not entertain it.
They subscribe to the Brechtian notion of theater as being a force for social change. That the purpose, once you get butts in the seats, is to shake them up! Wake them from their bourgeousie slumber! Show them that there's a world out there that's slummy and ugly and more powerful than you could ever imagine! Make them feel guilty! Make them hate themselves! Make them — and this is seriously not a joke — leave the theater feeling like CRAP.
Well no wonder no one goes to the freakin' theater anymore. Stupid artists like these think they know better. And this, being a free country, where people don't want to spend $35 + parking to get the crap knocked out of them for two and a half interminably boring hours, is not the fault of the non-theater-going public for not wanting to participate.
I've endured a number of self-important diatribes bemoaning the lack of culture in this country, how Europe — where this crap-philosophy thrives and the theatergoers are entrenchedly masochistic — knows so much better, and how the state should sponsor this stuff so that The People could have access to Real Culture. What a bunch of wanks. No wonder I couldn't take it any more.
I just can't freaking stand it when these people speak.
link-ophant: see sycophant, only it's someone who sucks up via linking on their blog. Which I am not doing. Really. It just so happens that Ace writes about a lot of stuff that also happens to interest me too. Okay? So shut up. Please.
Posted by Matt at November 15, 2004 5:15 PM
